Gotek floppy emulator

[curtis]

It may be bad.  Will know this evening when I get the larger sledge hammer!  

Following the instructions on Win 7 pro I programmed 4 with difficulty on only one that required a couple of resets. I've been soldering since I was a cub scout, so the headers were no biggie.  Maybe the drive you bought is defective?  They are only 20 bucks.

[curtis]

Well, looks like either the USB to serial adapter is bad or the gotek drive is bad.

Double checked my solder job.  It's good.

Tried the laptop, but that @#$%^@ thing died on me!

Tried the desktop again with same results.  Keep getting "No response from target."

Since the cable is cheaper will pick up another one of those and go from there.

Putting thread on snooze until new cable arrives.

[amiman99]

Well, looks like either the USB to serial adapter is bad or the gotek drive is bad.

Double checked my solder job.  It's good.

Tried the laptop, but that @#$%^@ thing died on me!

Tried the desktop again with same results.  Keep getting "No response from target."

Since the cable is cheaper will pick up another one of those and go from there.

Putting thread on snooze until new cable arrives.

To try to eliminate the USB-TTL converter, try to open HyperTerminal and choose USB's COM PORT, then short TX and RX together.
When you type on the Terminal you should see an ECHO back (same letter back). That will confirm working USB dongle.

[curtis]

Well, took amiman99's advice and fired up good ole hyperterm and set echo to on.

Got double characters.

Disabled the echo and only got 1 character of what I was typing.

Guess it's NOT the USB serial adapter!

That would seem to indicate the drive I got is bad.

Time to contact the seller and see if they'll make good on it and send another one.  Anyone holding their breath?  Not me!!!

[curtis]

Okay, got the new USB to 232 cable in.

Just for giggles decided to give it a whirl.

Had to pull the cables out of the 6 pin header and get them all set up.

Fire up the loader program and same danged thing!  RATS!!!!

Oh, wait a minute, this cable has CTS and RTS lines!  Jumpered them together and tried again.

Loader program found the emulator!  YAY!!!!!!!

Loaded up the software on the emulator.  Went smooth as silk.

Picked up a generic 1G USB drive and loaded a couple of .adf files.

Hook the emulator up to my A500 test bed, crossed my fingers and turned it on.

Right to the emulator menu.

Picked a file and let 'er rip.

Booted right up!

Tried a reset, but wouldn't find the other files.  Guess I need to play a bit more to figure out this thing better.

Anyway, IF anyone is having problems with their setup and you have CTS/RTS lines, try jumpering them together and see what happens.

BTW, for those unfamiliar with comms signals, CTS is Clear To Send and RTS is Ready To Send.  Amazing I would remember that from my Navy CTM basic electronics after over 27 years!  Guess I still have a couple of marbles floating around in my gray-headed noggin!

Curtis

[danbeaver]

Well, glad all is working, and yes you have to play a bit to figure how to add multiple adf's to the loader.

Odd you should end up with a full RS-232 setup; the USD TTL UART based on the PL2303HX lacks the CTS & RTS lines and is what I used.

Go in Peace and Prosper!

[curtis]

Yeah, I thought it was kinda weird that I had to use the CTS/RTS lines and no else did.

Oh well, whatever works!

Who knows, this might help someone else out.

[gertsy]

That's weird never had to use RTS, CTS. At a guess I'd say our default COM port advanced settings are different. Have you used a different USB to serial adaptor previously?
In any case it's working and you've discovered another step for people if things don't work first off.

[nickoteen]

Link to that cts/rts cable please. I'm having the same issues here. Device not recognised.

[nickoteen]

Actually I did it. Using Win XP instead of Win 7. And also reseting the device once using a plain paperclip, instead of a jumper. Which one of the two did it I don't know, but my Gotek runs on a new firmware now. (Gotek time !)

[danbeaver]

Yep, I had to do a second reset on one of the four I did.


Does Nickoteen fall the night before Halloween?

[nickoteen]

Does Nickoteen fall the night before Halloween?

Only if u smoke like a chimney.

[r.cade]

I was not able to flash my Gotek... I only constantly got "unrecognized device" no matter what OS or serial driver.  

Finally, I found another forum unrelated to Gotek (ST Microelectronics) that some were able to use the 3.3V (from the USB-TTL line to the Gotek) instead of the 5V line. I tried that, and it worked first time.

May be of some help to people unable to flash.

[spaceman88]

I was not able to flash my Gotek... I only constantly got "unrecognized device" no matter what OS or serial driver.  

Finally, I found another forum unrelated to Gotek (ST Microelectronics) that some were able to use the 3.3V (from the USB-TTL line to the Gotek) instead of the 5V line. I tried that, and it worked first time.

May be of some help to people unable to flash.

I thought you were supposed to use the 3.3 v line. I don't have one yet, just heard about them a couple of weeks ago. I see you can get them for about $35 on Ebay (China) or a pre programmed one from various places for $60 - $70.

[gertsy]

I thought you were supposed to use the 3.3 v line. I don't have one yet, just heard about them a couple of weeks ago. I see you can get them for about $35 on Ebay (China) or a pre programmed one from various places for $60 - $70.

Yes, you are supposed to use 3.3v line. The online instructions clearly say that.  What I suggest people do (only because it works for me) is fully read the instructions and then reading them again summarise them in your own writing into logical steps. That will help retain the key points.
If it doesn't work the first time don't just try again. Disconnect and start everything from the beginning.  Incorrect connectivity or inconsistent connections is a common problem. Soldering a header onto the Gotek connectors a good way to negate that issue.

[danbeaver]

I bought mine for $29.95 USD from China (they come with little goodies like a PC driver mini-CD) and with a $5 USD USB TTL device they should program within 30 minutes, including setting up the header. Now you can pay to have someone do this, but buy off Amibay for a good price.